Methodology
We have a script that captures Jack's Patreon follower count every 10 minutes and saves a timestamp & that subscriber count to a database that lives on my server. This project started Feb 2021, but since then Graphtreon (link:
https://graphtreon.com/creator/jackmonroe) has come on the scene, and gives us data to daily grain. I was relieved when comparing our vs their data that it reconciles so this approach works which is gr8 news/a huge relief.
The next stage is just to export this dataset to Excel and do some basic manipulation. So everything underneath 'Subscriber Movements' (header in pink) is known fact and verifiable to an independent source (Graphtreon). Unfortunately Jack hides her Patreon revenue figure so everything underneath 'Patreon Payday' is an estimate of how much she could hypothetically earn with such a subscriber base, using a number of reasoned assumptions. Detail of which is below:
Patreon Payday aka Mithering about FA
Firstly for clarification - "est rev @ £3.50ps" means the estimated revenue when we assume that 100% of subscribers are paying £3.50, we then deduct the worst case scenario of 12% platform fees* to give these net revenue figures.
There is absolutely no way for us to get more detail on the type of subscribers joining or who have been with Jack since she started her Patreon in April 2017, so there will always be a degree of uncertainty re: monthly takings. In detail:
- We don't truly know the % of platform fees Jack is paying.
- There is no way of capturing the split in her subscriber base between annual vs monthly subscriptions, so some months she may take home significantly more but this should net off across a 12 month period.
- On the above - annuals are actually discounted at 15% so we run the risk of over reporting revenue across a 12 month period.
- Jack repeatedly and publicly claims that over half her subscribers are only paying £1 despite a) this being a significantly harder checkout journey with ~30 clicks versus ~5** b) this being advised against by Patreon themselves due to their fee structure.
- There is the option for custom subscriptions, and these default at £5, which is 43% higher than her minimum of £3.50
So to conclude - these revenue figures really are an estimate with a bit of give/take to what they could be. But considering the only people we see speak publicly of subscribing (whether it's on her Patreon comments page or Twitter) are subscribing to the more expensive physical rewards yielding tiers (£7, £10, £24 - heaven forbid lol) that it's improbable
to me that her average per subscriber figure is just £3.50.
*When this tracker first began in Feb-21there was very little documentation on Platform fees available either in Patreon's documentation or online, I believe I took the highest rate found on a press release related to a round of investments/their valuation? Since then I believe documentation has been improved but we've stuck with the 12% fee for consistency. I'm not sure if this is something we should review, if anyone is super up on this please reply with the fee structure and I'll restate these net revenue figures. Sorry I don't have time to dig into this myself.
** Whoever calculated this please share exact numbers and I can credit you in this write up, again sorry I didn't dig into this myself.
Results & how to interpret them
Firstly a disclaimer - I've changed the table slightly so you may notice losses have moved down a row. Detail on this in the writing below, but anyway:
Nonsensically we'll start with the 'Subscriber Movements' side, headed in pink
Using
October 2022 as an example - she opened the month with 700 subscribers and was paid for such, with an estimated minimum revenue of £2.2k. We saw 77 subscribers leave (under losses) and 22 join (under gains), this nets at -55 subscribers or -7.3% month on month (MoM%).
Revenue is calculated as: (opening subscriber count * estimated per subscriber revenue) * 0.88. So this is net of her platform fees, but obviously not taxes - not that I imagine she bothers herself with such endeavours.
Playing around with per subscriber (ps) scenarios.
Conscious of our mithering, I'd like to highlight just how much of an understatement our estimated revenue is likely to be. The following table maps out what % of her subscriber base would need to be on each tier to create the average per subscriber scenarios we use in our 'Patreon Payday' section:
In writing:
- The assumption of an average of £3.50 per subscriber is possible with 100% of subscribers opting into her lowest pre-fabricated, marketed on the landing page ATL (above the line, e.g. you don't need to scroll or click to expand on the page), tier.
- An average of £5.00 ps is possible with a near 50/50 split in her subscriber base to the two lowest tiers.
- The £10.00 ps is a reach just playing amongst the 4 lowest tiers (<=£12 pcm) but is still feasible with this combo weighted towards the £12.00 tier. Please notice the more expensive £24.00 & £44.00 pcm tiers have not at all been considered: we are by no means reaching with our estimates.
Next steps
Jack continues to discredit any attempts to estimate her monthly Patreon revenue but has yet to click the button to show her earnings on Patreon, as recommended by the platform itself. Please empower your donors to make decisions that are right by them & their families as the economy continues to go to
tit.
Oot (won’t let me tag u sorry!!) has flagged that there's another number available in platform (amazingly! ty for intel) so I'm gonna take a look at setting another script up that monitors that too, time permitting.
www.thebookseller.com
